Photographic (3 page)

Jane stood looking at her in consternation. “It’s got to be killing you.”

“I’m tough. I just want to sit. Okay?”

Jane looked from Marta’s camera, which hung from the chair on the opposite side of the round table, to Marta. She shrugged. “If you say so. As long as you’re not taking pictures. Would you like coffee?”

“Please.” Touching the embroidered scarf, Marta winced. “Was this a gift?” 

Jane glanced over. “Yes, when he went to India, Ian brought that back for me.”

She poured two cups of coffee from the pot, still half full from that morning, before sitting down. Marta took large gulps of coffee as if it could go right to her ankle and take away some of the pain. She finished one cup and sipped more slowly on the second, as if she could afford to, and was able to give some of her attention to watching Jane. 

“I’m surprised.”

“By what?” 

“By you. Asking me in.” She set her coffee down for a moment and unzipped her jacket, shrugging it off. 

Jane leaned her head on her hand for a moment. She rubbed her forehead. “I feel something for you that you don’t feel for me and my daughter.”

“What’s that?” Marta leaned back in her chair. Her hat looked out of place inside. 

“Empathy.” This woman had crossed all the bounds of propriety and surely some law of trespass. But since she had crossed the threshold from outside gate to kitchen table, she felt like a guest. Jane found herself wondering about the details. “It must have been cold in that tree. How long were you up there? You must have come while it was still dark.”

“Maybe an hour. It was damn cold,” Marta said. She held out her mug, ready for a third cup. Jane poured.

“That’s why you twisted your ankle. Your legs got stiff.”

“Probably.” Marta sipped.

“You should take something.” Jane observed the line of pain between Marta’s brows and got up to get her some tablets from the cupboard.

Marta took four, slugging them down with more coffee.“My mother didn’t look after me this well.” 

Jane smiled. 

“You think I’m kidding.”

In the confused mix of emotions she was experiencing, Jane felt the important question rise to the surface, the problem that had been bothering her most since she discovered Marta in the tree that morning. “Can I ask you something?”

“Shoot.” 

“Will you make a deal with me?”

“What kind of deal?” Marta set down her coffee and squared her elbows on the table. She pulled off her hat and threw it on the table, revealing blond, spiky hair. With her olive complexion and dark eyebrows, it was a striking contrast. 

“You have something I don’t want you to have.” Jane locked eyes with her. “I could give you something else, if you agree not to use it.”

Marta nodded, eyes dark, half-closed. “Do you have any idea how much what I have is worth?”

“I’m afraid not.” Jane got up from the table and looked out the window over the sink, out over the fields through the trees, to the lake behind the house. A fine haze had settled in the distance; gray and forgiving, its pale wash gave the familiar landscape an air of elusive mystery. The lake might be a stone’s throw or a mile away.

“A lot.”

Jane turned back around and leaned on the counter. “I don’t see why. Ian’s not even in them. Why would anyone care?”

“One: You wouldn’t believe what people will pay for, and how much. Two: No one sees much of you. Or the kid. That gives it a premium. Supply and demand. When you live like a hermit…”

“We don’t live like hermits.”

“I don’t think there’s been a decent picture of Tamsin published in the last couple of years.” Marta leaned into the table, her pronounced way of speaking becoming more noticeable, her voice taking on a tone of righteous indignation. “You, too. I mean, when there is one, it’s been telephoto, bad quality, grocery store parking lot, stuff like that. Can’t really see what you look like. You’re better looking in person. Not as…well, never mind.” She leaned back and nodded toward her camera where it hung on the kitchen chair. “You deserve something decent. I could make you look good.”

“Oh, yes. Just what I hoped would happen today.” She folded her arms, each hand rubbing the opposite arm slowly. “We’re living here in happy ignorance. I prefer to keep it that way.”

“What were you going to offer in exchange for the pictures of the kid?”

Jane swallowed. She crossed back to her chair and sat down again. “I’ll talk to you a little bit. That’s all. Is that worth something to you?”

Marta’s face took on a considering remoteness. “Get him to talk to me, too.”

“He won’t do it.” Jane looked down at her lukewarm coffee.

“He wouldn’t have to know we struck a deal. You could say you met me, talk me up. How I’m so easy to talk to, and how it’ll be such a good article. Only you and I would know how it came about. Unless you want to tell him the whole story. It’s up to you.”

“He’s working. He’s shooting in some ruin somewhere or on a boat. It’s not a good time.”

“I could do it by phone. Or…I could fly over there, if it were more convenient.”

Jane took a sip of her coffee, though she didn’t want it, and shook her head. “I’m telling you it wouldn’t work.”

“He needs publicity. He has to do publicity when it comes out, anyway. It would be good for the film. Just some early promotion.”

“He hates that part and only does the minimum. He doesn’t do it while he’s working for sure, unless it’s do or die.”

“Well…” Marta looked Jane over as if she were a sorry substitute, “instead of that, you’d give me a full interview?”

“What is that exactly?”

“Say…an hour? Recorded? With pictures of you and the house.”

“Oh, my God. No. No pictures.”

“It would be tasteful,” Marta said hastily. “Not a tabloid.” 

“Your camera is broken anyway. And you're not coming back."

“I could sue. I fell on your property.”

“
I
could sue. Trespass.”

They glared at each other.

“We would win.”

“Maybe, but I would fight it. It could last for years.” Marta smirked. “A big hassle for all concerned. He doesn’t want any hassles, does he?”

She looked as if she enjoyed this haggling. Like a hawk gliding through its native medium, lingering on the air currents, waiting to strike. 

“Why are you here? Why did you wake up this morning and climb our tree?” 

Marta shrugged at the question. “Simple. I’m sure you can figure it out.”

“Money, I suppose.”

Marta raised her eyebrows, pursed her lips, and kissed the tips of her fingers. “A lot of money.”

Jane felt anger rise up in her, pushing against her chest. Ian had suffered so much at the hands of these people. Now that she didn’t travel with him anymore she didn’t have to bear it like he did. And here she had invited it in. She could have called an ambulance. Or driven Marta straight to the emergency. 

“It better be enough to let you sleep at night.”

“A gal’s gotta eat.”

“Good for you.”

“Supply and demand. I’m just the messenger.” Marta seemed to find it all amusing. 

“That’s as close to an apology as you’ll ever give, I suppose. The messenger of what? Don’t you care?”

“Of course, to a certain extent.” Marta’s tone changed. From mischievous and teasing her expression shuttered down and became unreadable. They were silent for a moment.

“You pray to the god of self-interest.”

“So do we all, dear.” 

Another silence said enough for both of them.

“I’ll drive you to the hospital.” Jane stood up.

“What about the interview?”

“Your ankle might be broken.” Contradictory feelings warred in Jane. She dreaded of the idea of an interview, yet she sensed even deeper an odd excitement, a thrill, at having Marta here to talk to—a longing to connect with someone, even this woman, to prolong her stay, to talk more. She thought about an interview and what it would mean. She thought about having someone to talk to. Did the fact it was the former mean she couldn’t enjoy it being the latter? Marta was saying something. 

“It doesn’t hurt as much as it did at first. I think I’ve gone numb. We could talk right now.”

Jane stood in the middle of the kitchen, looking from the camera on the chair to the phone on the wall.

“Do you need to call him to see if it’s okay?” Marta said, the slightest suggestion of a taunt in her voice.

“No, of course not.” If she had needed him for every decision, she never would have been able to get anything done, for the past four years at least.

“Let’s do it then. Bring me my backpack.” She set down her request like a challenge. A dare. 

Jane found herself walking back out to the front hall and fetching the backpack. As she carried it back in, she wondered why she was willing to do this; why she was falling in so easily with what Marta wanted. She could almost see herself taking these actions, unable to stop. Some small voice asked what the consequences of this conversation might be.
I don’t read this stuff, anyway. So I won’t be bothered by it. And this way I’ll get Tam’s pictures.
She put the backpack on the table. Marta zipped it open and took out a small recorder.

Jane sat down. “First, give me the film of my daughter.”

“There’re on digital. Do you want me to delete the pictures, or do you want to see them?”

Jane was nonplussed. “I…want to see them so I know you’re deleting the right thing. Maybe I could keep a few?” It wasn’t every day she got nice pictures of Tam and herself, strange though the circumstances were.

“Well, I shot these pictures. They belong to me until they’re destroyed. We are doing a trade, though, so if you want me to print some out for you, and then delete, we could do that. I just don’t want to see anyone else making a profit off them, right?” 

“Obviously that won’t happen.”

“Let’s get these printed out. Then we can get to the good stuff.” Marta smiled and swung her foot down from the chair, grimaced and put it back up. 

After carrying her printer and laptop downstairs in consideration of Marta’s injury, Jane got copies of the pictures she wanted and saw the remaining files deleted. There were no other excuses for delay. They sat across from each other at the kitchen table, Marta’s leg propped on a chair, the tape recorder between them. 

“You’ve been married seven years.’

“Yep.” Jane fixed her eyes on the tiny machine in front of her.

“You met on one of his films.”

“Mmm.” Jane nodded. She thought of her words captured digitally, forever. 

“You were his makeup artist.”

Jane brought her eyes up to Marta’s smooth confident face; only the glittering dark eyes betraying excitement. “That’s right.”

“Was it love at first sight?”

Jane shifted in her chair under Marta’s look. As if aware of the effect of its intensity, Marta glanced down too at the recorder. 

“I don’t know if it was love, exactly. But it was something.”

“What about Ian? Love at first sight?”

“You’d have to ask him.”

“If I get the opportunity, I will. So when was this?”

Jane’s concentration returned to the kitchen table. She rubbed at a jam smudge with her fingers. “When we were making
Bird in the Hand
.”

“It’s a pretty intimate thing, doing someone’s makeup.”

Jane raised her eyes. “Yes, it is.” 

“It’s logical. Lots of actors have had the odd affair with their makeup artist.”

Jane jerked her chin. “Oh, really?”

“Oh, yes. But yours has lasted. And you got married, of course. So, what’s he like?” Marta licked her lips. Her hand wandered to the recorder again, where she fingered the on/off switch, confirming its position.

“What’s he like?” Jane repeated, beginning to grasp the focus of the interview. “What’s he like,” she said to herself, thinking what she must say, what she must not. She thought in her head the truth: He’s gone a lot. Work rips him up inside. He comes home a wounded beast. Until he’s human again I’m caught in the riptide of his moods. She sat with her head resting on her fist. She remembered all of it: the good, the best; when his light shone on her.

Jane raised her head. “He’s thoughtful. He cares about people, he’s sensitive to them. He looks after us, when he’s here. He reads to Tam. She likes it because he does all the different voices. He’s good at crossword puzzles. He likes the trees and walking around outside, being out in nature. He messes around in the barn and works on projects.” How would he describe what she liked?

“What kind of projects?”

“Oh, some woodworking things, stools for Tam, lap desks, stuff like that. Other things, whatever he wants to do. I don’t know all the projects he has back there.”

“He has a reputation for disappearing into his roles, for being very intense about his work. Does he bring that home with him?”

“He tries not to, of course. Sometimes you can’t help it, I think. It’s hard work, and it kind of takes you over, when you go into it so single-mindedly, exploring all those places deep inside, to find a character. When he’s with Tam I think he can let go of it more easily. They share her hobbies together.” 

“Like what?”

“Oh, last year when Tam got interested in stars and planets they got all wrapped up in telescopes and getting up in the middle of the night to see shooting stars and comets and all. They both became very knowledgeable. For an actor and a five-year-old, anyway.”

“He must be away a lot of the time.”

“Of course. He has to be, for the location shoots, and the ones in Los Angeles, since we don’t live there. It’s the toughest part, definitely.” She brushed her hair back though it wasn’t in her face.

“Have you given an interview before?”

“Not really.” There had been all that fuss when they were married. She had answered a few questions thrown at her. Never a formal interview. This wasn’t so bad. She thought the questions would be harder, more probing. That Marta would know everything, have a dossier and run down the list. 

“How can you be a press virgin, married to Ian Reilly? How have you escaped?” She looked Jane over. “I can tell you’re inexperienced, though.”